


In Flanders Fields, The Poppies Blow

by SamFarenn



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War I, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-13 10:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21492919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamFarenn/pseuds/SamFarenn
Summary: Eric Bittle, fed up with the United States' policy of ignoring the raging war in Europe, volunteers as an orderly with the Canadian Red Cross. He is shipped out to France, where he comes face to face with the horrors of what will be known as the Great War. He is later moved to a field hospital just behind the front lines at Ypres, where he meets and falls in love with a handsome French-Canadian platoon captain named Jacques Zimmermann.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	1. Off to War We Go

_ February 12, 1915 _

_ The war in Europe has been raging for more than six months now. The photographs of the front I see in the newspaper are supposedly of cities and fields, but all I can see is a wasteland that stretches for miles. We here in the States hear stories about what happens on the front lines, but I’m not sure if half of those are made up, or what. They just sound so terrible that they’re hard to believe.  _

_ I’ve decided to volunteer as a foreign troop with the Canadians. I cannot stand idly by while my country sits on its ass and refuses to come to the aid of people in need. I’ve told Mama and she said she’d let me go only if I swore to God I would not be involved in any fighting. That was never my intention. How is a five-foot-six-and-a-half twenty-year-old figure skater going to shoot somebody? No, I want to be a medic. I’ve read several books on field medicine and anatomy, and the Canadians are even offering to train willing American volunteers to become field nurses. If I can save even one life, it will have been worth it. _  
  


The heaving sea toyed with Eric Bittle’s stomach like a cat with a ball of yarn. Usually he was fairly alright on boats, but that was on a smooth lake or the calm waters off the Georgia coast. The swells of the North Atlantic were something else entirely. Every half hour he’d have to rush over to the side of the ship and toss his lunch overboard. 

As Eric was hunched over the gunwale once again, a Canadian private came up next to him and lit a cigarette. The private offered him a drag, but Eric refused. Weakly, he said he didn’t smoke, and didn’t plan on starting to, neither. The Canadian shrugged and leaned against the railing, facing away from the rolling horizon. 

“It helps if you look away, ya know,” he said. 

“Sorry?” Eric replied, unsure what the other man was getting at. 

“Your seasickness. It helps if you don’t look at the sea. The trick is to fool your brain into thinking you’re on solid ground.” He turned around and put his elbows on the railing. “See, like this you’re gonna feel real bad, ‘cause the horizon’s moving around alot and ya don’t know where y’are.”

Eric looked up at him. He wasn’t half bad looking. Dirty blond hair, a few shades darker than his own. A strong jawline and a powerful nose, but nothing too sharp. Hard angles rounded off with softness. Kind eyes under drawn brows, with a seemingly permanent wrinkle in between. He coughed and cleared his throat. “What’s your name, private?” he asked, wiping his clammy hand on his khaki uniform trousers and sticking it out to be shaken. 

“McConnell. George McConnell,” the man said, and shook Eric’s hand. “And yours?”

“Eric Richard Bittle. It’s a pleasure to meet you, George McConnell.”

George grinned and said: “The pleasure’s all mine, Eric Richard Bittle. I assume you’re a medic?” He gestured towards the band around Eric’s bicep, a strip of white cloth with a red cross on it. “I also assume you’re not Canadian, from your accent.”

Eric chuckled and attempted in vain to straighten up from slouching over the railing. “You assume right on both counts, Mr. McConnell. I am a medic, and I am, in fact, from Georgia. Seein’ as my country won’t do much to help the poor folks over in Europe, I figured it my duty to step up and do my part.”

George whistled and stuck his hands in his pockets, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “That’s mighty brave of ya there, Mr. Bittle. We can use every man we can get, if I’m being honest. Let’s just hope you don’t have to patch my ass up once we get out there.” He winked and slapped Eric on the back, sending him spiralling through another wave of nausea. “Well, I’ll catch ya round, eh?” he said, and walked off to chat with another soldier who had just come out of the stairwell. 

Eric made a sort of affirmative whining sound and closed his eyes as that morning’s breakfast splattered onto the deep blue below.

“Name and number, quickly if you please!” An Englishwoman in an apron and her hair pinned up in a practical manner called to the group of new arrivals. They were standing in the entrance hall of a manor house in Northern France, a couple dozen miles from the front and well out of range of German artillery barrages. The chateau had been commandeered by the British and Canadian forces in order to set up a hospital to treat those soldiers that were too injured to continue fighting, but not injured enough to be considered in critical condition. Eric felt slightly out of place in the house, there not being very many, if any, other male orderlies. He didn’t let that bother him, however; the female nurses were for the most part very friendly, although there were some who resented him not volunteering to fight. Those were generally the less experienced nurses, ones who hadn’t yet witnessed what horrors war could wreak. 

The businesslike English nurse snapped her fingers and pointed towards a corridor leading off to the right, with a sign in both French and English saying “ _ Operating Rooms - Salles d’Operation”.  _ A group of nurses who seemed to know how things worked around the place made for the corridor, rolling up their sleeves and preparing to scrub up. Soon enough, the head nurse -for Eric figured that must be who she was- was looking at him sternly and saying: “So, you must be the American, Mr. Bittle. Welcome to the war. You’ll be quartered in the gardener’s house, and I will be frank, I shall not tolerate hanky panky in this hospital. Do I make myself clear?”

Eric straightened and replied: “Perfectly clear, Madam.” He thought to himself:  _ You sure don’t need to be afraid of that, ma’am… _


	2. Gas! Gas! Quick, Boys!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter home from Eric, detailing a few events of the Second Battle of Ypres.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains a detailed description of the effects of chlorine gas on the lungs. Some readers my find this disturbing.

_ “In this the second battle of Ypres the Germans tried by every means in their power to get possession of that unfortunate town. They concentrated large forces of troops and artillery, and further than that they had recourse to that mean and dastardly practice hitherto unheard of in civilised warfare, namely, the use of asphyxiating gas. _

_ You have performed the most difficult, arduous, and terrific task of withstanding a stupendous bombardment by heavy artillery, probably the fiercest artillery fire ever directed against troops, and warded off the enemy’s attacks with magnificent bravery.” _

_ Field Marshal Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army on the Continent to the 8th Regiment on May 21st, 1915 _

  
  


What follows is a letter, written by Field Nurse First Class Eric Richard Bittle to his mother, Susanne Bittle of Madison, Georgia, USA.

May 4, 1915

Dearest Mama,

I hope you have by now received my first letter, as I am aware how dangerous the shipping routes have become between Europe and home, the Atlantic crawling with German U-Boats as it is. I have since been transferred from my chateau in France to a field hospital not all too far from the front in Flanders, near a town they call Ypres, or at least, what’s left of it. I was able to take a ride with one of the ambulance crews into the town about three weeks ago, on a day when the fighting was quiet. Don’t you worry though, I was never in any danger; the trenches themselves are a couple of miles outside the town. It was all perfectly safe. 

The town itself is more rubble than anything else, really. Almost all the buildings have been blown to pieces, as well as the beautiful medieval cloth hall. One of the boys on the ambulance crew is a Flemish refugee who spoke English and enlisted for ambulance service, and he showed me a photograph of the Grand Place (or “Groote Markt”, as the fellow told me it’s called in Flemish) as it was three years ago. Mama, when I tell you the place is unrecognizable. It must have been a real sight to see. I hope you and Daddy can come visit this country once this darn war is over, I’m sure it’s a real fine place. 

While I was in town, I came across a very nice Canadian officer by the name of John McCrae. He’s the Medical Officer and Major of the 1st Brigade CFA (that’s Canadian Field Artillery) and he sure has a way with words. As it turns out, the man is a poet! He wrote a lovely poem and he gave me permission to copy it and send it to you. I have written it all out for you and attached it to the last page of this letter. Apparently, he wrote it after the funeral of one of his friends. That’s a thing we have to endure here all too often, sadly.

You may have read in the papers the horrible things the Germans have done to the troops on our side of the line. I simply have to tell someone or I feel I shall go mad if I keep it in. I saw what happened on April 22nd. I was coming up the road towards the part of the front held by the Canadians, just a little to the south of the French colonials, when suddenly, as I crested a small rise, I could see a great cloud of what looked like smoke spreading over no-man's-land, drifting from the northeast, that is, the German line, towards the French. A few minutes later, I reached one of the Canadian trenches at the back of the line, and I grabbed the attention of a passing captain. His name was Zimmermann and he was apparently French-Canadian, but he spoke English rather well. He was quite handsome, with a strong jawline and these piercing blue eyes. I think you’d quite like him, Mama. Anyway, I asked him what was going on over to the north, and he answered that no-one quite knew yet, but some of the guys nearer to the front had reported smelling chlorine, and more than usual (we use it to purify drinking water here, it doesn’t taste good at all). 

As there was no danger of snipers so far from the German lines, I climbed back out of the trench and through the Canadian H.Q. to get a better look at the scene. It was then that I saw a poor man in a blue frock staggering down the road from the French lines, and behind him another, and another. All were coughing and wheezing, some were even choking up blood. It was a truly horrifying sight, but it was my duty to help the poor souls, so I quickly gathered some Canadian boys who were standing about and rushed over to meet them. One of the soldiers with me happened to be that same Captain Zimmermann I mentioned before, and he asked the Algerians (they were Algerians, from the Territorial and Colonial Troop) what had happened that had made them abandon their trenches. I didn’t need to know French to understand the man’s ragged answer: “Du gaz, les Boches nous ont asphyxiés avec du gaz!” The Germans were using gas.

There is nothing quite like what chlorine gas does to a man’s lungs. The first thing a soldier notices is the smell. The acrid, pungent smell of chlorine makes the man’s eyes, nose, and throat burn. He feels like he is suffocating, and there is a pain in his chest. He starts to cough, which causes him to inhale more of the gas, and his eyes begin to water profusely. The gas causes the little tubes in his lungs to close up reflexively and a kind of mucus to form, which is then frothed up and is often seen filling up his throat, making it even harder to breathe. Gassing in the field, without the immediate use of a respirator to avoid inhaling even more gas, is fatal within minutes. I have seen many gassed soldiers pass through the hospital here since the Germans first started using that awful stuff, and the rattle of their breathing haunts me even in my dreams. I pray to God we find a way to counteract this dreadful gas soon, so that no more may die such an awful death. 

All my love to you and Daddy, and to Meemaw and the rest of the family too,

Your loving son,

E.R.B.

_ APPENDIX: _

_ In Flanders fields the poppies blow _

_ Between the crosses row on row, _

_ That mark our place; and in the sky _

_ The larks, still bravely singing, fly _

_ Scarce heard amid the guns below. _

_ We are the Dead. Short days ago _

_ We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, _

_ Loved and were loved, and now we lie, _

_ In Flanders fields. _

_ Take up our quarrel with the foe: _

_ To you from failing hands we throw _

_ The torch; be yours to hold it high. _

_ If ye break faith with us who die _

_ We shall not sleep, though poppies grow _

_ In Flanders fields. _


End file.
